Cat tails

You know how solving one problem sometimes creates another?
Well when our cat arrived Christmas morning with a dead robin at the back door I knew something had to give......He has never up till now been a great hunter and as he is now around 4years of age,maybe hunting was not his "thing". Which suited our family just fine...I just hoped that when people told me that even the smell of a cat around the place kept mice and rats away, that they were telling the truth.
But during the "big freeze" when the poor birds were suffering from lack of food and water, Ceefer took advantage .....we had dead birds most mornings, mostly thrushes, but 1 blue tit and a single red feather was on the doorstep one evening when I got home from work.
We saved a few but mostly they died after a day or two. That was difficult as I am actually afraid of birds....Yes I know I have wrangled a bat from the library and caught a wild cat in the car park and I can deal with horses,goats,dogs and most other animals ....there is no explanation, I just get creeped out with birds... So because of this Caitlin and Mack mostly did the feeding and looking after with me just supervising... but the poor kids were starting to get a little traumatised by the birds dying on them more often than not.
After talking to all my animal lover friends and taking everything into consideration
the general consensus to solve the problem was to bell the cat.......
I was not to happy about that as we live in the country and I really worried that Ceefer would get caught on brambles or goodness knows what...but cat collars come with elasticated bits which means they are safe and the cat can get its head out if they get caught up.
Have you ever been given evils by a cat? If looks could kill I was already cremated, scattered to the wind....AND I got the tail flick! He was not a happy puddy tat
But it has solved the problem.It has been well over a week now and not a feather in sight....which is great news....Yay........you would think.
Our NEW problem is poor Cait is being woken up by the bell jingling every time the cat jumps on or off her bed at night!